Tortilla & salad, tonight. In this house, this is a very simple, never changing recipe. The potatoes and onions get fried separately and are then mixed together. Eggs (two per person) go in and are slowly cooked through, drawing the eggs in to make a suitable thickness. In due course, the omelette is turned out, upside down, onto a plate and then slid back in to finish for a minute or so. It’s accompanied by crusty bread and a salad of letttuce, onion and tomato. Dressing of olive oil, lemon juice and Tabasco.
There’s a story to this dinner.
Nigh on 40 years ago, my sister in law went on holiday to Mallorca, with her parents. She met a guy - his parents ran the beach bar. She didnt speak Spanish (or Mallorcan). He didnt speak English. But they got by in school French. Within weeks, she had packed in her job and left to go back to Mallorca to live with him. They lived with his parents - his father also looked after a small farm owned by a wealthier relative. In what was still a significant rural community, this was scandalous - an unmarried couple living together and with the consent of the parents. Shocking! It wouldnt be happening if he had chosen a nice Mallorcan girl.
The next year, Jan and I went to visit. We got a taxi from our hotel and it dropped us in the village square. In a while, the sister in law turned up with her pet lamb tied to a length of rope. Of course, in that society, no edible animal is ever a long term pet (sister in law couldnt bring herself to eat any of the lamb when its time came). We had tortilla and salad for dinner - he cooked the omelette and made the dressing, she cut up salad vegetables. And how we cook it, is how they cooked it.
There’s usually enough for lunchtime leftovers the next day. Although we don’t eat it as the brother in law did - accompanied by a whole bulb of raw garlic to snack on.
